‘Gone!’ echoed Mr Haredale. ‘Where?’
’My dear fellow—and you must permit
me to say again, that you never looked so young; so
positively boyish as you do to-night—the
Lord knows where; I believe Columbus himself wouldn’t
find them. Between you and me they have their
hidden reasons, but upon that point I have pledged
myself to secrecy. She appointed to see you here
to-night, I know, but found it inconvenient, and couldn’t
wait. Here is the key of the door. I am
afraid you’ll find it inconveniently large; but
as the tenement is yours, your good-nature will excuse
that, Haredale, I am certain!’
Mr Haredale stood in the widow’s parlour with
the door-key in his hand, gazing by turns at Mr Chester
and at Gabriel Varden, and occasionally glancing downward
at the key as in the hope that of its own accord it
would unlock the mystery; until Mr Chester, putting
on his hat and gloves, and sweetly inquiring whether
they were walking in the same direction, recalled
him to himself.
‘No,’ he said. ’Our roads diverge—widely,
as you know. For the present, I shall remain
here.’
’You will be hipped, Haredale; you will be miserable,
melancholy, utterly wretched,’ returned the
other. ’It’s a place of the very last
description for a man of your temper. I know it
will make you very miserable.’
‘Let it,’ said Mr Haredale, sitting down;
’and thrive upon the thought. Good night!’
Feigning to be wholly unconscious of the abrupt wave
of the hand which rendered this farewell tantamount
to a dismissal, Mr Chester retorted with a bland and
heartfelt benediction, and inquired of Gabriel in what
direction he was going.
‘Yours, sir, would be too much honour for the
like of me,’ replied the locksmith, hesitating.
‘I wish you to remain here a little while, Varden,’
said Mr Haredale, without looking towards them.
‘I have a word or two to say to you.’
‘I will not intrude upon your conference another
moment,’ said Mr Chester with inconceivable
politeness. ’May it be satisfactory to you
both! God bless you!’ So saying, and bestowing
upon the locksmith a most refulgent smile, he left
them.
‘A deplorably constituted creature, that rugged
person,’ he said, as he walked along the street;
’he is an atrocity that carries its own punishment
along with it—a bear that gnaws himself.
And here is one of the inestimable advantages of having
a perfect command over one’s inclinations.
I have been tempted in these two short interviews,
to draw upon that fellow, fifty times. Five men
in six would have yielded to the impulse. By
suppressing mine, I wound him deeper and more keenly
than if I were the best swordsman in all Europe, and
he the worst. You are the wise man’s very
last resource,’ he said, tapping the hilt of
his weapon; ’we can but appeal to you when all
else is said and done. To come to you before,
and thereby spare our adversaries so much, is a barbarian
mode of warfare, quite unworthy of any man with the
remotest pretensions to delicacy of feeling, or refinement.’
